


he made his peace with letting go

by ilovethisship



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Canon Universe, F/M, Post-Canon, Spoilers, post 4x13
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-27
Updated: 2017-05-27
Packaged: 2018-11-05 11:33:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11012595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilovethisship/pseuds/ilovethisship
Summary: Movement at the treeline caught everyone’s eye at almost the same time. A silhouette burst out of the trees and stopped short. The person stopped and touched their hair. Their short, blonde hair. It was impossible.“Bellamy….” Raven latched onto his arm and pointed. “Bellamy. Oh my god.”





	he made his peace with letting go

Three months and twenty-two days went by before before Bellamy decided she was still alive. He had a dream that she was trying to talk to him, but he couldn't hear her voice. _“I would be able to hear her if she were dead, don't you get it?”_   Raven wrote it off as low blood sugar and maybe malnutrition, but Bellamy knew the truth. At least, he did until he woke up the next morning and realized he was crazy. He needed to find something to keep him centered.

Raven watched him carefully the next couple days, but no one else seemed to notice anything was wrong. At least he could pretend around the others. He had that.

* * *

Sometimes, he would lay in bed and think about what he would do if he could see her again. The world ending gave him some perspective on his life. It almost seemed silly that they had held their feelings in check so tightly. If he had known how things would end, he would have told her…. It hurt too much to even let himself think the words. He thought they’d have time to talk about it. Maybe they’d have shared his stupid, empty room.

It was a constant plague on his heart. He wondered if he had ever kissed her, if everything would still hurt as much.  It might hurt more. There was no way of knowing for sure, because the timing had never been right.

Death would find him one day ( _Destroyer of worlds. He got that right._ ) and he had never believed in an afterlife before. But she made him want to believe. Death couldn’t be the end of her. They would meet again and maybe, just maybe, they would have some time to breathe. Maybe they could have some time to figure out what else they could be for each other.

Maybe the timing would finally be right.

* * *

Six months later, he still had the same dream. It was on repeat in his head every night. It pulled at him. Every inch of him ached, from his skin to his bones. Every part of his body and soul wanted her to be alive. He chose not to tell anyone. He couldn't let them talk him out of it. Even he knew these delusions were setting him back in the grieving process.

The only way he knew to get rid of dreams was to drink until he passed out, but he didn’t have that luxury on the Ark. Any alcohol they found had been put into a cabinet in medbay in case someone was injured. They were each able to have one small drink on the anniversary of their arrival, but their survival took priority over Bellamy wanting to forget.

He didn’t want to _forget_ her. He just wanted to stop hurting every time someone said her name.

He just wanted to be able to say her name again.

* * *

Once everyone got the algae farm up and running, Raven and Monty went to work on the communications system. It took forty-two days before she called it a lost cause. Monty tried for a little while longer. The most they could get were bursts of garbled static.

Bellamy was sure his sister was alive in the bunker. He had hoped that the comms might work after that perpetual cloud had cleared revealing a brown, black, and grey planet.

They didn’t. It didn’t matter, anyway. It would have been nice to talk to Octavia, but he didn’t want to think about the right way to tell Abby that she was….

* * *

It had been two years, five months, and twelve days the first time Bellamy realized he hadn’t thought about her in a couple days. Guilt overwhelmed him and he paced outside the cabinet they stored the alcohol in, wondering if his tolerance had lowered over the years.

She had sacrificed herself to save their lives. He didn’t deserve to forget her.

Murphy found him sitting with his back to the doors, sobbing into his hands.

_“Learning to live with the emptiness isn’t the same as forgetting. Still, you’re stronger than I am.”_

* * *

Three years, four months, and two days. It took that long before he could remember her without being overwhelmed by that guilt. He didn’t think about her every day, but he thought about her most of them. Every decision he made, every action he took, she was in them. There was no escaping her, but it was okay. At least he could almost say her name.

Sometimes, he still had the same dream. She would be walking by him in the halls or he would be walking next to her in the woods and she would just be chatting away. But he still couldn’t hear her voice. The desperate part of him from so long ago had faded, though. The only reason the dreams bothered him was because he had forgotten what her voice sounded like. It would have been nice to hear it again.

* * *

It was four years and twenty-one days before they saw the first green spot on Earth. Everyone was excited. Even Bellamy was a little excited. They all had one drink to celebrate that night.

Raven started working on the rocket the next day.

* * *

The five year mark came and went. Monty tried to fix the comms again, but Raven snapped at him and told him it was a lost cause.  She snapped a lot. They all snapped at each other a lot. Some days, it seemed like the only thing that had solidified them as a group had been that five year guarantee. The longer it took Raven to fix the very minor ( _"It’s not minor, Bellamy, it’s going to kill us.”_ ) fuel problem, the more everyone kept to themselves.

Most of the time, Bellamy stood and stared out of the window. The green spot looked a little larger, but not much. It was still something to hope for.  Or, it would be if Raven could fix the damn rocket.

* * *

Six years and twelve days. They were over a year late, but they were finally going down. Bellamy had what he thought might be a small panic attack as he strapped himself back into the same spot he had all that time ago. The time had passed, the wounds had turned into only occasionally painful scars, but the last time he had been inside the rocket, they were leaving one of their own behind. Someone he….

Raven was only slightly calmer than he was. “We better not need to get back up here,” she said through gritted teeth as she ran through the pre-launch sequence.

Emori was the only one who seemed to be sad that they were leaving. She had taken to space in a way he never expected. He wished….

The ride down reminded him of the drop ship. It reminded him of messy blonde hair appearing out of a crowd of teenagers. _“Stop!”_ His breaths came sharply and he tried to force himself to breathe a little slower. It was hard to calm down while hurtling toward a planet that might kill him at hundreds of miles an hour. With no one on the other side of the comms, there was no way to know what to expect.

Raven let out a gleeful shout when they touched the ground. “I told you guys I’m a badass!”

“Like anyone really doubted it,” Murphy said through a grin.

Bellamy set a hand on the latch. _“The air could be toxic.”_ The computer was able to tell them that radiation levels were tolerable, but they still double checked their suits before he opened the door.

Blinding light and another wave of déjà vu rushed over him. The door was smaller, so they had to climb out one at a time. Bellamy went first and the others tumbled out behind him. He took his helmet off first and breathed in deep. _“If the air’s toxic, we’re all dead, anyway.”_ They had almost no supplemental oxygen left, so it was their only choice. _"Also an oxymoron, by the way.”_  He wondered when she would stop living in everything he did. Probably never.

Monty stepped up to his side as he tossed his own helmet to the ground. “We’re back, bitches?”            

Bellamy burst into laughter, followed closely by Murphy and Harper. The others shook their heads with small smiles.

Movement at the treeline caught everyone’s eye at almost the same time. A silhouette burst out of the trees and stopped short. The person touched their hair. Their short, blonde hair. _It was impossible._

“Bellamy….” Raven latched onto his arm and pointed. “Bellamy. Oh my god.”

He couldn’t tear his eyes away. Raven could clearly see her, too, so he knew it wasn’t a hallucination. It was possible, but he wasn’t sure radiation sickness affected people that way. His tentative step forward was stopped by Raven’s death grip. She released him quickly.

“Go. I’ll catch up.”

It couldn’t have been more than seconds that they had been standing there, but she was already closer, sprinting across the field. It felt like his legs were stuck in cement. He wanted to go, to run, but he could only take another shaky step forward, because there was no way….

“Bellamy, go!”

He didn’t know who it was, but they shoved him and it was enough to push him out of the quicksand. A shout was stuck in his throat. It wouldn’t come out. It had been so long since he had _run_ , but he was running with a speed that he never knew he had.

 _Oh my god_. He could see her face. She was alive. He was still back at the rocket and they were all dying of radiation poisoning. There was no way this could be real.

They collided into each other and he breathed in again as they swayed together. It was the first real breath he had taken in over six years, he was sure of it, and she smelled like the earth and the trees and like home. _Wake up._ Their hands were everywhere and he could feel her trying to prove he was real, too. “Clarke, you’re alive.” His hands were in her hair, on her neck, they ran down her back and pulled her into him as tightly as he could. “Clarke.”

“You’re alive, too, Bellamy.”

Her voice. Her voice. It was like dancing. It was like music. He let his lips skirt across her jaw, her ear, her hairline before pressed his forehead into hers and brought his hands up to the side of her face. He wanted to look at her, but he closed his eyes and held onto her, because _she was alive_. It couldn’t be real. There would be time. They would have all the time in the world.

“This can’t be real.”

“It is real. You’re here.” She laughed quietly. “You’re late.”

“God, you’re here.”

“I’m here.”

“How?”

It took him a moment to realize that what he thought was blood rushing in his ears, because she was there and he was touching her again, was actually a rover. The rover slid to a halt next to them.

“You got a rover up and running?”

Clarke grinned. “I’ve had some time to get it figured out.”

The rover door slammed and Clarke turned, but kept her arm around his back, stroking circles into his spine. A young girl with brown hair practically flew around the front of the vehicle.

“Who—”

“This is him?”

Clarke nodded.

“It’s nice to meet you, Bellamy. Clarke, they’re on their way.”

Bellamy glanced back. The rest of their friends were still huddled back by the rocket, but some seemed to trying to figure out who the new arrival was. “Who’s on their way?”

Clarke turned back to him. _Clarke. Clarke was here. Clarke was alive. He knew it._ “We need to get the rest and go. Now. I’ll explain on the way home.”

**Author's Note:**

> So, this ended up being totally different than it was when I started writing it after the finale on Wednesday. Here's hoping we won't have to wait too long into the season to get an actual reunion.
> 
> Come suffer through this hiatus with me on [Tumblr](http://ilovethisship.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
